Page 38 of Ruled By Their Desires

“So stop.”

“I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Neither of us wants that. Not really.” He wiped a hand down his face not moving, his eyes never off what passed for a road through the backwoods. “It’s been building since you hit your late teens and I saw you at your nineteenth birthday party. My god you were so beautiful and confident, it made me doubt myself again. Your parents had invited me every year since we started to work together, and I kept making excuses not to go because I knew you didn’t want to see me. But that year, I’d seen you training with the quad for the first time in the base. It had been by accident. I’d never seen a human work with us like you did. Your skill only surpassed by our own. It was mesmerising. You were so damn good. It struck me then, that there was every chance that you would survive a KC attack. That if they came, you could take them out. It made me think that my fears had been unwarranted. But, by then, I was damaged goods and had a reputation both with you and the people. One I’d earnt. No one needed that. It made me cold and bitter, hording my memories and rejecting anything else. There wasn’t a kind thing about me. I was the job, took what was offered and moved on and made myself believe it was for the best. Particularly still faced with the mortality of your life. I never wanted to face losing a human again or leave one vulnerable to attack. It was all too enviable. You would become old, frail, have less ability and eventually die, leaving the quad behind to go on or not.” He seemed lost to his thoughts for a moment. “We don’t have a termination date Moon. Did you know that? None of us know if we can die of age. They, we, may go on for centuries mourning your loss. We’re already doing that with so much already.” He sounded so pained. It bothered her.

“I know. I’ve talked to the quad about it from time to time when something reminds one of them. We know where we stand. Moving on when everyone dies, would be/is difficult. They accept it and so do I.”

They drove for a bit in silence. “Do you remember the Crono Virus when you were just a teen?”

“Yeah, we lost a lot of people that year.”

“It didn’t affect us.”

“I know the uncles were healthy when the rest of us were not doing so well.” She thought about that. “Actually, I was feeling unwell to start with, but it was soon gone, and they kept me in isolation, wouldn’t let me out for two months I was close to killing them.” She chuckled.

“Yeah, that was for a reason.”

“I know they love me.”

“It was more than that.” She looked over at him.

What did that mean?

“When the virus struck the communities nearest yours, it was good they were all pretty isolated, not just for keeping KCs from finding you all but for diseases travelling between them. People started dying, they isolated you and dosed you with their blood. Just a bit. A drop in your drink every day. A minute amount for your body to grow a tolerance and become stronger. Within two weeks, everyone in your village was ill, luckily your parents and their group were off at a meeting at the time, those that stayed behind started dying and were seriously ill, but you were not. Their blood kept you healthy and at the end of it, you survived without a full-blown attack, others survived but took months to recover and were vulnerable to weakness and other diseases and so many more died. They took you out in the wilds for four months after that to track remember?” She nodded. “That was to keep you away from the sick. I still think the KC’s were responsible for that somehow. Anyway, I can tell you for a fact, your uncles do not accept that you will die and will do everything in their power to prevent it.”

She frowned looking away from him. “I didn’t know that, but there’s no doubt their actions saved me. I’m grateful.”

“It did, you’re right but after, they didn’t stop dosing you. They’re still dosing you now Moon. You don’t get ill, if you get injuried you repair quickly, your senses are off the charts, you have more muscle mass than most females, more strength than a human, fight like us, think like us, act like us.”

She shrugged. “I’m still not hearing a downside to what they’ve given me.”

“They did it so they wouldn’t lose you Moon. So you’d stay with them for as long as they existed.”

“Well we all know that’s not happening. I’ll die at some point.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” he told her slowly. “Your face is no longer aging. It has stayed exactly the same since you were 24. No deterioration, no lines, no wearing. Humans don’t do that. They age daily.”

She looked back at him. “What are you saying?”

“We think they have passed on our genetics somehow, possibly it took because you were still growing in puberty, literally growing pains and likely you had some of the virus already working through your system for it to fight. Your body was changing anyway, it’s possible that it was absorbed into your growth spurt, but we don’t know for sure, but it’s clear you have a tolerance for it, it doesn’t burn through you like someone who doesn’t. It is the only explanation for what’s going on and if so, we might also pass some of our genetics on during an exchange of other fluids too.”

She started to laugh. “Oh my god, it’s like an STD for SCs. You’re gonna have to hold a rally and tell all your conquests you’ve fucked them in more ways than one. That’s fucking perfect.”

She heard him grind his teeth and it only made her laugh more. “Only if we’re fertile.” He bit out.

“Yeah, right, you sure about that?”

“We didn’t know we were fertile back then when they gave you blood. We do now. We’ve done some testing on the quiet. We can make ourselves infertile, produce our seed dead.”

“Wow that’s some trick.”

“You’d better hope so, I fucked you remember.” Her face dropped.

“You were barely in and pulled out.”

“Yeah, but my swimmers are fucking strong baby and some of that pre-cum that was squirting out, would have been racing to get to the mother load. Quite literally.”

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